


As Above, So Below

by JenTheSweetie



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenTheSweetie/pseuds/JenTheSweetie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley and Aziraphale talk, drink, complete paperwork, drink, fall asleep with abandon, drink, and do other stuff (maybe).  And drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Above, So Below

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Snapjack for introducing me to the wonderful world of Good Omens, for encouraging me, always, to challenge myself, and for totally being on board whenever I tell you, "So, I think I have a new ship..."

The worst part about working for Hell was the paperwork.

Hell had paperwork for everything: paperwork for expenses, paperwork for anti-miracles, paperwork for vacations (which were never approved, but which Crowley took anyway).  There was, naturally, paperwork to confirm that you’d filled out all your other paperwork, which Crowley could only assume was immediately burned.  Living on Earth got Crowley out of a decent amount of paperwork over the centuries, until pencils showed up and he could no longer fill out the paperwork explaining that paperwork was an “undue hardship due to slow evolution of writing implements.”  It was the only bad thing about the end of the Dark Ages.

Crowley worried, as he picked up the next form from the pile, that this particular round of paperwork would be both egregious and potentially infinite.  Apparently his original term of employment was only slated to go until the Apocalypse - funny, the things they bury into contracts among the details of salary and threats of eternal hellfire - and now that the world _hadn’t_  ended, he needed to re-apply.  The application paperwork had arrived at his flat all at once, nearly crushing one of his favorite lilies to death in its pot.

_Have you previously worked for this employer_?  Crowley checked “yes”.   _Why did your previous term of employment with this employer end?_   Unsurprisingly, there was no checkbox for “because I helped avert the Apocalypse.”  That meant he’d have to fill out form 17b, “Unusual or Extenuating Circumstances Regarding Previous Employment.”  It was 32 pages long and required a notary public.   

He called the bookshop.  

“Hello?” Aziraphale said.  He sounded nearly as cranky as Crowley felt.  

“Drinks,” Crowley said.  “Now.”

“Yes, all right,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley grabbed the keys to the Bentley.

-

“No, no, no, my dear boy, it was the 1936 Beaujolais we drank in Berlin,” Aziraphale said as he pulled a baguette out from nowhere and began to cut it on a small cutting board in his lap.  “The ‘34 was terrible, I would have thrown it away by ‘45.”

“Are you sure?” Crowley said, wrestling with the cork of the sixth - seventh? - bottle of wine of the night.  The others were littered around their favorite bench, the one nearest the pond and least likely to be bugged by MI6 due to the propensity for ducks to get at the equipment.  “Because I could swear I remember you going on about the ‘36 on the train, complaining about how you wished you’d saved a bottle of it for the occasion - ”

“You’re misremembering,” Aziraphale dismissed.  He handed Crowley a bit of bread, and Crowley popped it in his mouth instead of tossing it toward the pond.  “Anyway, you were far too worried that your superiors would figure out that you’d visited the führer shortly before his death - “  

“I should’ve done it sooner,” Crowley muttered, finally extracting the cork from the bottle with an extra helping of violence.  “That sick son of a - ”

“There, now,” Aziraphale said, patting his arm and pulling up a glass to replace the one Crowley had shattered a few minutes earlier when he’d gestured a little too wildly and thrown it into the bushes.  “We both know you weren’t responsible for any of that business, whatever your employers might have believed.  Speaking of your employers - “

“Must we?” Crowley said, filling the glass to the top and taking it out of Aziraphale’s hand.  

“You’ve heard from them recently?” Aziraphale asked.  

Crowley rolled his eyes.  “Enough to know that my ‘continued employment is currently under consideration’, and also that I’ve got to fill out about fifty thousand pages of paperwork if I want to make rent next month.”  

“It’s your own fault for inventing human resources,” Aziraphale chided.  

“What’s the word from Upstairs?”

“None yet,” Aziraphale said.  “I’m sure they’ve been - er - occupied.”

“More like busy sulking because an eleven year old had more sense than they did,” Crowley said, filling Aziraphale’s glass.  A few drops sloshed over the side; they disappeared before they could land on the angel’s trousers.

“I wouldn’t say more sense, exactly,” Aziraphale said diplomatically.  “Less of a yearning to bring about the end of the world, perhaps.”

“They’ve never had a cab franc this good, clearly,” Crowley mused, watching his glass swim a bit in front of his eyes.  “They wouldn’t be so keen to rapture up all the - what’re they called - the ones that stomp on the grapes - “

“Vintners,” Aziraphale contributed.

“ _Vintners_ , yeah,” Crowley said.  “They’d’ve left everything as it should be if they’d known a bloody thing about _vintners_.”  He nodded firmly at a point well made.

“I would have missed this,” Aziraphale said.  

“What, the park?”  Crowley tossed a bit of bread in the general direction of the pond; it missed dramatically and nearly ended up in a tree.  “They’ve got parks in Heaven, if I recall.  Gardens, at least.”

“No - well, yes, but I meant being here with _you_ ,” Aziraphale said.  “We’d never have seen each other again if it had all gone - what’s that phrase you’re so fond of?  Bosoms to the sky?”

“Tits up,” Crowley corrected.  “No, I imagine not.  Not a lot of transit options between Above and Below.”  Crowley noticed vaguely that he was tilting ever so slightly to the side, his shoulder pressing up against the frankly hideous jumper Aziraphale was wearing.  The angel tossed a scrap of baguette onto the ground at their feet.  A duck waddled up, looked at them seriously, and then snatched up the bread as if someone were about to come and steal it out from under his beak.  

The angel cleared his throat.  “I feel like I should warn you that it’s not impossible that I’ll be recalled to Heaven one of these days.  Permanently.”

Crowley winced.  “I’ve considered the possibility that I might be making a long journey south myself.”

“It would be a pity to have to leave,” Aziraphale said sadly.  “I’d miss all of my books.”

“And my car,” Crowley said.

“Wine,” they said together, and then sighed deeply.

“Well,” Crowley said, straightening up.  “I can’t say it’s always been fun, angel, but it’s been - well, it’s been _something_ , hasn’t it.”  

“Indeed it has.”  Aziraphale lifted his glass.  “And either way, at least it’s all still here for _someone_  to enjoy.”

“Cheers to that,” Crowley said, and clinked his glass against Aziraphale’s.  They both drained their glasses to the dregs.

Another duck wandered up and pulled the rest of the baguette out of Aziraphale’s lap with a quack.

Aziraphale said politely to the duck, “Would you like some wine?” 

It was the last thing Crowley remembered for a while.

-

It wasn’t the first time Crowley had woken up hungover, parched, and with only a vague memory of the night before clinging to the edges of his soggy, wrung-out mind. 

It was, however, the first time he had done so naked.

And next to Aziraphale.

"Er," he said. The angel was sleeping with his mouth hanging open and a blanket, which they were evidently sharing, pulled up to his neck.  

He was also snoring.

Crowley swallowed, the taste of the wine they'd shared at least six bottles of the night before sour at the back of his throat.  They were lying on the floor of his sitting room, which was both a relief and a bit of a mystery, as his last memory took place not in his flat but in the vicinity of St. James’s Park.  It included Aziraphale holding out a glass of wine for a duck.

But back to the matter at hand: Crowley was naked. This was worthy of emphasis because the truth of it was that Crowley was rarely nude.  He didn’t shower, and he didn’t change clothes so much as think up new ones, which would have been a highly convenient thing for him to do right now, at such an extraordinarily odd moment, except that he was a bit busy wondering if the angel hogging his blanket was _also_  naked. 

Couldn’t hurt to have a peek, could it?

He lifted the blanket.

Right, then. 

A naked angel, if you're curious, looks nothing at all like those images of cherubs painted on the insides of churches. Well, maybe cherubs look like that, but Aziraphale was no cherub, Crowley could officially confirm.  He was built like a man in his late thirties gone a bit to seed, with a round belly and pale, patchy chest hair. 

And an enormous cock.

Crowley dropped the blanket.

This had the unfortunate side effect of waking up Aziraphale, who jerked to consciousness with a cut-off snore and opened his eyes to see Crowley trying to look like he _hadn’t_  just been having a gander at the knob of a fellow he’d known for a couple of millennia.

"What the _hell_?" Aziraphale said, and that's when Crowley knew they were _really_  in trouble. 

\- 

“This is impossible,” Aziraphale proclaimed after a long silence in which they stared at each other and, in Crowley’s case at least, became very aware of the feel of the plush carpet under their bare arse.  The angel came to his senses first and miracled them both clothes, and then he pushed the blanket away and began to pace around the sofa.  “We can’t have - I mean, there’s _no_  way we’ve - well, you know what I mean!”

Crowley did know.  One might assume that Crowley, being a fallen angel and therefore an intrinsically non-sexual being, didn’t know much about sex.  However, the reality was quite the opposite: Crowley knew possibly _everything_ about sex.  Crowley had regular Tuesday night drinks with Lord Byron.  Crowley was there when they wrote the Kama Sutra.  Ever wonder who introduced Anne Boleyn to Henry VIII?  Aziraphale may have gotten the accolades for the whole “new sect of Christianity” thing, but it was Crowley who put the idea in Henry’s head that a break with the Church might be the easiest way to get Annie between the sheets.

But although Crowley was reasonably knowledgeable when it came to the art of seduction, it was something that, in his mind, simply happened to other people.  Sex wasn’t even a _thing_  when he was created, and although it was useful enough as a tool in his current profession, he’d never had any interest in getting involved in it himself.  Seemed a bit _messy_  for his tastes, really.

Which is what he would have said to Aziraphale if the angel would have _let him get a bloody word in edgewise_.

“ - gone and turned me _human_ , then?” Aziraphale was saying when Crowley started paying attention again.  “And how much _did_  we drink last night?  I’ve never before faced any adverse effects from consuming alcohol, much less fallen _asleep_ , and do you know I’ve got a _headache_  this morning - ”

“So do I,” Crowley snapped.  “And this conversation is not helping.”

Aziraphale frowned; Crowley’s headache eased.  “Better?”

“Yeah,” Crowley grunted.  “See, you’re not human.”

“Perhaps not,” the angel conceded.  “But still.   _This_  certainly can’t be part of the ineffable plan.”

“Angel,” Crowley said tiredly.  “All things considered, I don’t think there _is_  an ineffable plan at the moment.”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale says, and went off to the kitchen in search of another bottle of wine.  

-

In the grand tradition of the English, they didn’t talk about it again.

Crowley placed the entire evening firmly in the “Do Not Think About” part of his brain, alongside the 1100s and disco.  He spent most of the week buried in forms 76b through 76q, which included ninety pages of archaic sigils that ultimately were just explaining his options for direct deposit.  He began to wonder if perhaps the apocalypse wouldn’t have been so bad.

He avoided Aziraphale for several days, because it seemed the prudent thing to do - not that he was particularly well-versed in the complexities of how to react after you wake up naked and amnesiac next to your best (and only) friend, whom as far as you know has never so much as taken off his sweatervest in the presence of another living creature - but then got a bit bored when the weekend rolled around and there was nothing good on telly, so he drove down to the shop and double parked outside.

“We’re closed,” Aziraphale called from behind the counter as the bell over the door tinkled.

“You’re always closed,” Crowley retorted.  

“Oh, hallo,” the angel said, looking up from the book laid open on the countertop.  It looked extremely old, enormously valuable, and very nearly _covered_  in greasy fingerprints from the takeaway container of fish and chips Aziraphale had his hand buried in.

“Are you feeling all right?” Crowley asked.  He was a bit concerned.  He’d seen Aziraphale place an old book inside a ziplock bag, which he then put inside another ziplock bag, which he would have put inside yet _another_  ziplock bag if Crowley hadn’t thrown them all out the window.  Now Aziraphale was paging through what looked like an early edition of the King James Bible with an entire bottle of malt vinegar open on the counter.  As Crowley watched, Aziraphale lifted his fingers to his lips and actually _licked_  them.  He’d never seen an angel lick _anything_.  

“I’m ravenous,” Aziraphale said.  “Isn’t that odd?”

“Considering you don’t technically need to eat?” Crowley said.  “Yes.  Definitely.”

“I thought so too,” the angel murmured.  He picked up a napkin and dabbed the corners of his lips.  “Do you want to go out to dinner?”

Crowley arched an eyebrow.  “It seems like you’ve already covered it.”

“There’s a new place around the corner that does a fantastic curry,” the angel said.  “Curry was one of yours, wasn’t it?”  

Crowley couldn’t remember.  “Definitely.”

They sat down at a small booth in the back corner of the restaurant that was mysteriously freed up the moment they arrived.  Aziraphale rattled off their orders to the waiter before Crowley even got a chance to look at the menu, a habit which Crowley found rather unbecoming of an angel, and were effusively grateful when their wine arrived.

“So, what have _you_  been up to?” Aziraphale asked as they tucked into their curries a while later.

“Trying to get my job back,” Crowley replied.  “Is there a reason your lot can’t _ever_  take a bureaucrat off our hands?”

“They never seem to want to settle in Upstairs.”  Aziraphale sounded almost apologetic.  “Not enough red tape.”

“I spent three hours this morning translating a form written in Biblical Aramaic that ended up being a guide to usage of inter-office memos from the 1400s.”  Crowley took an annoyed bite of curry.  “It’s sadistic, is what it is.”

“I’ve heard there’s a push to get Heaven’s documentation digitized,” Aziraphale said.  “The transition will be an absolute nightmare, I imagine, they’re not prepared for it, they didn’t think they’d have time, I imagine, what with the war and all, but now...”

“But now they’ve got to find some other way to spend their time until they figure out how to muck it all up again,” Crowley said darkly, the curry burning its way down his throat.  “Might as well put it towards - ”

He paused, a great feeling of tingling warmth rushing through his face.  He wrinkled his nose.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale said, leaning forward and putting his hand on Crowley’s arm.  “Are you quite all right?”

Crowley opened his mouth to say that he wasn’t not entirely sure _what_  he was, but before he could say a word he threw his head back and -- 

_\-- Sneezed_.

Aziraphale yelped.  A few other diners looked around. 

“Did you just sneeze?” Aziraphale asked, his voice hushed.

“I’m not sure,” Crowley said.

“I’ve never heard you sneeze before.”

Crowley said, “That’s probably because I never _have_  sneezed before.”

Aziraphale looked suspiciously at his curry, then pushed it away.  

“Bill, please,” he said curtly.

By the time they were back in the fresh air and walking toward Aziraphale’s bookshop, Aziraphale was blathering on about how they’d both been picking up bad habits from humans (“We never used to get so drunk!” he pointed out, to which Crowley responded, “Well, practice makes perfect.”)   Crowley argued that it might be some new type of curry with unusual powers, and they bickered sportingly all the way back to the small wooden doorway of the shop that was, briefly, a smoldering pile of ashes.  

The smell of fish and chips still lingered inside the shop, so Aziraphale tossed the chippie detritus in the bin and grumbled about poor ventilation while Crowley searched the back office for a nice bottle of brandy he knew he’d stashed in the late ‘60s.  By the time he found it, Aziraphale had begun a soliloquy on the merits of a particularly old and smelly-looking tome, so Crowley poured himself a glass and leaned against a shelf.  A few millennia on Earth had taught him that he could stand anything so long as he was holding a stiff drink.

“What’s really incredible, though, is - Crowley, are you listening?  I think you’ll find this very interesting, my dear,” Aziraphale said.  

Crowley highly doubted that he would, but he said, “Fascinating” anyway, and Aziraphale beamed and continued on, his voice fading to familiar white noise in the background of Crowley’s musings.  The angel wasn’t really a bad-looking chap, when Crowley thought about it - _not_  that he was thinking about it - and he was so animated when he talked of _books_ , of all things, that it was very nearly endearing.  Not that an angel could be endearing, of course; angels could be pompous and preachy, obnoxiously oblivious, and reasonably competent business partners, but not endearing, _never_  endearing.  Crowley frowned, wondering where that word even came from - it wasn’t not a demonic word, that’s for certain - and noticed that Aziraphale’s pale hair was flopping into his eyes, and before he could thoroughly think it through, he reached up to tuck it behind the angel’s ear.

“ - and to think I never would have found it if not for that whole business in Lower Tadfield!  Well, I suppose I wouldn’t have found anything on Earth ever again if not for that whole business in Lower Tadfield, but still - Crowley, what ever are you doing?”

They both stared at his hand, which was hovering at about eye level.

“I haven’t got a fucking clue,” Crowley said.  

“Ah,” Aziraphale said.  Crowley tried desperately to communicate with his errant limb; he eventually reached up with his other hand and forced it under the table.  

“It’s just,” Crowley said, still fighting a battle with his traitorous hand, “Your hair, it was - well, at any rate, I’d best be going - ”

“So soon?” Aziraphale said, his face falling, and Crowley felt a swoop in his stomach that he was pretty sure had nothing to do with the curry from earlier.

“I’m not feeling so well, to be honest,” Crowley said.  “Could be contagious - first the sneeze, now this - ”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale said, stepping forward and peering into Crowley’s face.  “If you’re not well, perhaps you ought to stick around - ”

“I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” Crowley said quickly, taking a step back until he ran up against the bookshelf.  It was both his hands, now, apparently, because it was everything he could do to keep them clasped behind his back and not reaching up to cup the angel’s face.  There was something _very_  wrong with him, clearly, and Aziraphale just kept looking at him with concern and confusion, and it suddenly dawned on Crowley that he’d seen this exact scene in a movie before, in one of those terrible films that always end in a park in the middle of a rainstorm and star a hesitant woman and an oblivious man, and, right, he’d gone and cast himself as the woman in a romance, the apocalypse had arrived after all, just a few weeks late - 

“Sneeze,” he burst out, pushing Aziraphale away firmly and snatching his coat up off the stool.  “I’m going to sneeze again.”

Aziraphale blinked.  “Are you?”

“Probably,” Crowley said.  “So, I ought to go and, er, handle that.  Have a good night, with, with, your books, and all of it.”  He brushed past Aziraphale and made for the door so quickly that he knocked over a teetering pile of books.  “Sorry - sorry about that - goodbye, then - ”

“Good night,” the angel called as Crowley slammed the door behind him.  Crowley winced at the sound of the tinkling bell and clambered into the Bentley, wishing away the six parking tickets he’d acquired since earlier that evening and peeling away with screeching tires.  

“Well, fuck,” he said.

__

_Fat Bottomed Girls_  played on repeat all the way back to his flat.  

-

The best part about filling out the paperwork from Hell was that it demanded so much of one’s attention that one had no additional time to worry about any stray feelings one might have been having about one’s best (and only) friend.  

_Do you have any dependents?  If yes, please explain._   Crowley checked no.  How could he possibly have any dependents?  Nobody from Hell had any dependents, unless you counted Adam.   _How much taxable income did you report in the previous fiscal year?_   Crowley skipped this one; he _invented_  taxes, thank you very much, but he certainly didn’t pay them.   _List, in ascending order of importance, everything you have done to aid and abet the cause of Hell in your entire term of service or the past 1000 years, whichever comes first_.  Crowley pulled out a bottle of gin.  It was going to be a very, very long night.

He was well on his way to toasted when there was a knock at the door.  He stared at it.  As far as he was aware - or at least, as far as he was aware until a moment ago - there was not a creature on Earth who knew where his flat was located.

Except.

Crowley set down his glass and opened  the door.  “Angel,” he said warily.

“May I come in?” Aziraphale said.  He looked flustered.  The sleeves of his button up had been rolled up to the elbows messily, his tie was loose, and he smelled faintly of whiskey.

“Er,” Crowley said.  “Yes?”

Aziraphale pushed past him and went about inspecting the flat, though for what, Crowley could not even imagine.  He poked his way through the plants, muttering tipsily under his breath, and Crowley wondered if there might be a polite way to kick an angel out, or if he’d simply have to wait for Aziraphale to get bored.

“I’ve been thinking, ” Aziraphale began.

“Oh, no,” Crowley said.

“And I think that you and I should revisit the situation in which we unexpectedly found ourselves a fortnight hence.”

Crowley blinked.  “Beg your pardon?”

Aziraphale leaned forward; the scent of liquor intensified.  “The thing is that I’ve been putting the pieces together, and I do believe that something has gone terribly wrong with my body.  With _this_  body, the one that Adam gave me after the old one was misplaced.”

“Is that so,” Crowley said noncommittally.  Aziraphale’s body seemed perfectly fine to him - er, that is, it seemed _normal_  - or rather, he didn’t know anything about it at all, and that was how it had always been, and how it should always be, full stop.

“Haven’t you noticed?”  

“I’ve been busy,” Crowley hedged.  

“Well, my dear, it’s been quite a nightmare, frankly,” Aziraphale said.  “I’ve been _hungry_ , and I’ve been _tired_  - Crowley, do you know that I’ve been _sleeping_  at night?”

“The horror,” Crowley said.  

“Indeed!  And of course, there’s the bit with _you_  - ”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Crowley said, holding up his hands and backing away.  “I’ve got nothing to do with it.   _My_  body’s just fine.”  This was not strictly true, Crowley thought distantly: his body had been sneezing, and refusing to sober up before it fell asleep, and having altogether confusing reactions in the presence of a certain Heavenly spirit.  But that wasn’t anyone’s business, especially not the Heavenly spirit in question.      

“Even so,” Aziraphale said.  “I’ve got a plan.”

“You know,” Crowley said, “I’m not sure I’m interested in any of your plans at the moment.”

“This is a good one,” Aziraphale said confidently.  “I’ve got to prove to up Above that something’s gone off with this physical form, right?  And they won’t just take my word for it - they don’t understand about bodies, really, not like we do.  So I’ve got to do something with it that will really shake them up, really _scare_  them.  Something my old body would _never_  have done.  So you know what we’ve got to do, don’t you?”

Crowley didn’t know.

“We’ve got to have sex.”

Crowley blinked.  He took off his sunglasses and blinked again, just to be sure that Aziraphale had noticed.  

Aziraphale forged ahead.  “I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it?  If we actually - you know - did _it_.”

Crowley wished a glass of gin into his hand and drained it all at once.  He wondered if he’d entered into a very bad dream.  It seemed unlikely, since he’d never _had_  a dream, but then, stranger things had happened.  Things like this conversation.  “Have you been drinking?”

The angel threw his arms into the air.  “Of course I have!  How do you think I got up the nerve to come here and say this to you?”

Crowley dropped his face into his hands.  “Let me just make sure I’m understanding you correctly.  You’re saying that you want me to sleep with you so that you can prove to your boss that your body’s gone off its rocker and get Him to give you a new one.”

Aziraphale beamed.  “Precisely.”

“Nope,” Crowley said.

“Oh, come on!” Aziraphale said.  

“Angel, that is a terrible idea,” Crowley said, which he mostly believed to be true.  “First of all, there are no guarantees that we’re even _capable_  of - ”

“I’m sure the plumbing will work just fine,” Aziraphale dismissed.  “There’s no reason it shouldn’t.”

“You’ve put some thought into how this might work?” Crowley said faintly.  

Aziraphale’s cheeks turned pink.  “Yes, actually.”

“Well, regardless,” Crowley said, trying to pull his mind out of whatever gutter it had wandered into, “We’ve only gotten away with our whole Arrangement all these years because Above and Below couldn’t be fucked to notice who was doing what, but now that the whole thing’s gone to Hell - or not, as it were - how d’you know that they’re not paying attention to us, eh?  How do you know you won’t Fall if you’re caught messing around with the likes of me?”

Aziraphale pulled himself up to his full height and narrowed his eyes haughtily.  “I’ve considered the possibility, and determined that on the balance, it’s worth the risk.”  He tossed his hair back, and Crowley inexplicably thought about what he looked like naked.  He’d never much thought about what _anyone_  looked like naked, and now he was a bit worried that if he thought about it much more, he’d disintegrate Aziraphale’s clothes with his mind.  “If you’re not interested, of course, I would never ask you to participate in something you didn’t want to do - well, not _never_ , but this is hardly Joan of Arc, is it, this is _personal_  - 

Crowley said, “Sod it,” grabbed Aziraphale by the shoulders, and kissed him full on the mouth.  

Aziraphale let out a strangled little squeak, then relaxed, his body going slack and molding up against Crowley’s in a frankly delightful way.  Crowley realized quite suddenly that the ache his human form had long carried around, the throbbing feeling deep in his gut, had been a longing for, well, for _this_.  Aziraphale’s hideous jumper was rough under his hands, but the angel’s lips were soft, and he pushed Crowley back against the wall and pinned him there, his mouth slowly working Crowley’s open until Crowley could feel Aziraphale’s tongue.  Tongue kissing, now _there_  was a human invention if there ever was one.  

“Wait,” Aziraphale gasped, pulling back violently and leaving Crowley feeling absurdly bereft.  You go several millennia without kissing, and you have one tongue down your throat and suddenly you’re some kind of addict.  “Hold on a moment.  I think - ”  He clamped his mouth shut.

“What?” Crowley asked softly.  He reached out hesitantly and cupped the angel’s cheek; he wouldn’t admit it under threat of holy water, but he craved the contact, wanted to pull Aziraphale back into his arms and mess up his hair and dispose of that awful jumper and do all sorts of things that he’d spent his whole existence convincing humans were _absolutely_  worth ruining their marriage and their career and possibly their dynasty over.  He wanted to say things so disgustingly romantic that he was worried he might actually spontaneously combust if he said them aloud, and worst of all, he wanted to hear Aziraphale say them back.  “What is it?”

“I think I’m going to vomit,” Aziraphale said.

And then he did so, spectacularly, all over the floor.

Crowley said, “This is very, very bad.”

“I know, I ruined your lovely white carpet,” Aziraphale said, wiping his hand across the back of his mouth.  “My most sincere apologies, my dear, I’ll clean it up - ”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Crowley said.  “Angel, something is wrong.  Something is wrong with _us_.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Aziraphale cried.  “Have you got a toothbrush?”

-

After he’d conjured up a toothbrush from under the sink and put the angel to bed (“I don’t need to sleep,” Aziraphale complained, yawning and leaning heavily against Crowley’s shoulder as the demon dragged him down the hall to the bedroom, “I’m fine now, not even a bit sleepy”) Crowley put the kettle on and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” Anathema said blearily.

“Anathema, it’s Crowley,” Crowley said.  “Anthony Crowley.  From the - you know - ”

“Yes, of course,” Anathema said.  She put a hand over the receiver.  “Hush, dear, go back to sleep, it’s just the demon.”

Crowley winced.  “Is that Pulsifer?  Nevermind, I don’t want to know.  Listen, Miss Device, I’ve got a question.  Does that book of yours, the Nutter one, does it have anything about, er, any _liaisons_  between angels and demons?”

“Liaisons?”  Anathema sounded amused.  “Liaisons of what sort?”  
  
“Of any sort,” Crowley said shiftily.  

“It would be enormously helpful if you could be even slightly more specific.”

Crowley looked around as if someone might be listening.  “Of the _romantic_  sort.”

“I’ll check my notes,” Anathema said, “but no, I don’t think so.  Agnes didn’t much concern herself with people’s sexual habits, unless they were mine, of course.  Are you two having it off, then?”

“No,” Crowley said.  “Maybe.  This is a very unpleasant conversation.”

“Well, I’m not sure what you were expecting,” Anathema said.  “Agnes didn’t predict _everything_ , you realize.  Though, to be entirely honest, it doesn’t exactly take a prophetess to see that you and the angel are a bit more than friendly rivals - ”

The kettle whistled.

Aziraphale called from the bedroom, “Could you bring me a cuppa, my dear?”

“My god,” Anathema said.  “Have you gone and married him, then?”

Crowley hung up without another word.

-

Aziraphale was gone when Crowley woke up on the sofa in the morning, a crick in his neck and a blanket that had not existed when he fell asleep pulled up neatly to his shoulders.  The flat was aggressively clean.  He now had a recycling bin, which was empty except for a bottle that once held gin.

“Bugger all,” Crowley said loudly.  

His plants recoiled instinctively.  

“No, not you.”  Crowley dragged himself off the sofa and stomped around, picking things up and putting them down again in a slightly less organized way.  He was thinking about going outside and doing something _really_  demonic, like egging on a thief or convincing someone to vote Conservative, when, with a flash of light and the scent of sulphur, a single piece of paper with a perforated edge floated down and landed on the coffee table in front of him.

Crowley peered down at it, a sinking feeling in his stomach.  It was a form, one of the seemingly infinite he’d been plodding through since the not-apocalypse, and it was stamped with a red **REJECTED.** He scanned down the page until he found the question that had been circled with what looked like the point of scythe. 

_Have you made any adjustments to your corporeal form?  If yes, please explain._

Crowley had checked no, because unless you counted a slight lengthening of his hair during the 1970s, he hadn’t made any permanent changes to his physical form since his arrival on Earth.  And yet, there was a note in glowing, angry red ink that read: “All physical form modifications must be disclosed pursuant to Article 39 section 6.  Your physical form underwent a modification on Sunday, August 12th.”

Crowley read the paragraph three times to make sure he completely understood it.  He picked up the phone to call Aziraphale, then put it down, then picked it up again and requested the operator.

“Yes, hello,” Crowley said.  “Can you get me the address for a Mr. Young of Lower Tadfield?”

-

When Crowley arrived at Adam Young’s house, the boy was sitting on the front stairs and petting his dog, Dog, an animal which Crowley knew intellectually was a Hound of Hell, but which looked at the moment like it probably spent most of its time attempting to lick its own backside.  

“I thought you’d come by,” Adam said, scratching Dog behind his ears and looking entirely unconcerned that a demon was currently walking up his front drive.

“Did you?” Crowley said.

“Yes,” Adam said.  “Because of how I lied about not messing things about anymore.”

“Oh, this isn’t about the lying.”  Crowley perched on the step next to Adam and wrinkled his nose.  Dog needed a bath.  “Any boy would lie at such a moment.  I’ve come to find out exactly _what_  you lied about.”

Adam had the gall to grin.  “You’ve figured out what I did to you and the angel.”

“Oh, thank God,” Crowley said, completely without irony.  “You’ve made us fall in love.”

Adam frowned.  “No, not at all.  Ew, are you in love with him?”

“What?  No,” Crowley said.  “What’ve you done, then?”

“Well, I wanted to do something _nice_  for you, you know, because I know you two really like humans,” Adam said.  “But seeing as how you’re - well - you know - _not_  human, you couldn’t ever _really_ experience what it was like to be one of them.  One of us.  Er.  Whatever.  Anyway, I’ve fixed it for you.”

Crowley stared.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re not _actually_  human,” Adam said.  “I’m pretty sure you can still do all the weird things you could do before.  I’ve just made it so you’re also a bit more _normal_.  You know, so you can do things like have a lie in, or sneeze, or - ”

“Or get hangovers,” Crowley said.  “How thoughtful of you.”

“Well, I only had a second to figure it out,” Adam said, shrugging.  “I did my best.”  

“You didn’t change our personalities, then?” Crowley said.  “Didn’t put any thoughts in our heads?”  
  
“Nope.  Just sort of - I don’t know - brought you down to Earth, as it were.  Took away the things that made you sort of above us, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I do,” Crowley said.  “Can you put us back to rights?”

“Er, no.  No, I don’t think so.  S’not so bad being nearly human, is it?”  Adam tilted his head.  “Are you angry?”

“No,” Crowley said.

“I thought you’d be angry.”  


“I’m full of surprises,” Crowley said.  “Do the others know?  You know - Upstairs and Down?”

Adam shrugged.  “They won’t notice.  They’re busy, see.  Got a lot to think about.”

“That’s your fault too,” Crowley said, standing up and brushing Dog’s hair off his trousers.  “Well, I’d better be off.  You shouldn’t let strangers hang around your house.  You don’t want your mum to worry.”

“My mum’s always worried,” Adam said cheerfully.  “What was that you were saying about being in _looooove_?”

“Remind me why I didn’t let the world end?” Crowley muttered, and slammed the door to the Bentley behind him.

-

Aziraphale was in his natural state when Crowley arrived at the bookshop: dithering. 

“Can’t you people _read_ , we’re _cl_  - oh,” Aziraphale said, whirling around to snarl at the person who dared intrude on his private haven, a bookshop which is open to the public, at half past three in the afternoon.  “I - er - wasn’t expecting you.  I made a prat of myself last night, didn’t I?”

“No more so than usual,” Crowley lied.  “How much of it do you remember?”

“All of it, I’m afraid,” Azirpahale said miserably.  “Including the… kissing bit.”

Crowley neatly sidestepped being forced to acknowledge _that_  by saying, “I’ve got some news.  It’s rather a long story, but it starts with my employment materials, you know, from Downstairs - or rather, it starts with Adam, which I suppose means it really starts with _us_  - ”

“Is there a point, my dear boy?” Aziraphale asked.

“Adam changed us,” Crowley said.  “Made us a bit more human, he says - not _actually_ human, or anything, but not quite as _not-human_  as we were before.  Hence all the sleeping and the sneezing and the, er, physical inclinations.”

“Oh,” the angel said.  “Well, that explains it, doesn’t it.”

“I believe so,” Crowley said.  “So, that’s that, then.”

Aziraphale frowned.  “What’s what?”  

“Well,” Crowley said, “since it’s, you know, the work of the Antichrist, I figure you’ll want to call Upstairs and get it sorted.  I’m assuming He can do things like that, and if He can’t, well then, He shouldn’t act so smug, should He?”

“The thing is, though,” Aziraphale said.  “Well, it’s just - food very nearly tastes _better_  when you’re truly hungry, doesn’t it?”

Crowley narrowed his eyes.  “You could say that, yeah.”

“And I’m not sure there’s a better feeling in the world than going back to sleep after the alarm goes off.”

Crowley shrugged demurely; the snooze button was definitely some of his best work.

“I could do without all the itching in inconvenient places, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it, and I learned one day last week that a nice cup of coffee does _wonders_  for a hangover.  And of course,” the angel said slowly, arching an eyebrow, “there’s the kissing.”  
  
There was a silence that felt long even to Crowley, who is immortal.

“So you’re saying,” he said finally, “that you think we should… stay?  Like this?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell _you_  what to do,” Aziraphale said, as if he’d never dream of trying to boss Crowley around, when in reality he did so on a nearly constant basis, “but I should think I’d prefer to stay the way I am now, if it’s all the same.”

“Hm,” Crowley said.  

“And I also think we ought to try the whole kissing bit again,” Aziraphale followed up.

If Crowley had been partial to drawing breath, this comment would have knocked it out of him.

“Really?” he asked when he had recovered sufficiently to speak.  

“I mean, only if you wanted to.  It’s just, we did the first part, and you know what they say, in for a penny in for a pound, et cetera.  We might as well see what the humans have been so keen on all these years.”

“Almost like research, really,” Crowley said.

“And if Heaven doesn’t like it,” Aziraphale said, raising his voice a bit, presumably in case they were listening in, “Well, then, they can go right ahead and _piss off_.”

Crowley grabbed Aziraphale by the tie, pulled him over the counter, and kissed him.  

“There’s a good start,” Aziraphale said.  “Now, shall we see what else that forked tongue of yours can do?”

-

  
Later that evening, after Crowley had, for the very first time, enjoyed his bed in the way it was clearly meant to be enjoyed, he nudged Aziraphale in the ribs with his elbow.

“What,” the angel muttered, burrowing deeper into his pillow.  “‘M sleeping.”  

__

“Not yet you aren’t.”  He threw his arm over the lumpy blanket.  “Do you think we ought to thank him?”

“Who?” 

“Adam.”

Aziraphale rolled over and arched an eyebrow.  “For _this_?”

Crowley shrugged.    

“He’s eleven,” the angel pointed out.  “I’m fairly certain it would traumatize him.”

“Ah, right,” Crowley said.  “Perhaps when he’s older.”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale agreed, and buried his face in Crowley’s neck.

There was a companionable, contented silence.  Crowley thought about about the exceedingly unlikely circumstances that had led him from the garden, to Earth, to Lower Tadfield, to here, wrapped up in blankets with an angel who, really, looked nothing like a cherub at all underneath all that tartan.  It was strange, really: one day you’re tempting a bright young thing into eating a piece of fruit, and just a few millennia later you’re saving the world and drinking expensive wine alongside a sworn not-enemy and ending up naked, on purpose, with a bloke you’ve known for an entire lifetime.  The world was a wonderful, terrible place, but right now, at this very moment, Crowley thought that he might have gotten it all right, just this once - 

“Ow,” Crowley said.  “Angel, did you just _bite_  me?”

_The End_


End file.
